


One More Sleepless Night

by sal_si_puedes



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Smut, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Tumblr: Suits100
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 15:28:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12083910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sal_si_puedes/pseuds/sal_si_puedes
Summary: Soul Bonds are one-sided – there’s usually mutual affection, but only one party feels the crippling need to be together as often as possible. If separated at length from their love, that party becomes crushed by longing, panic, and sheer hopelessness, and so it is illegal to forcibly keep Soulmates apart.Some days, Harvey Specter hates the Bond that skews his judgement and weakens his resolve, and he fears what would happen if anyone in his world ever discovers he is so compromised. He certainly never planned to disclose the Bond for the first time in the middle of Anita Gibbs’ office, in a last-ditch attempt to invalidate the deal sending Mike to prison.





	One More Sleepless Night

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a prompt fill for prompt #76 on [suits100](https://suits100.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.
> 
> Thank you so much, dearest [lawsonpines13](http://lawsonpines13.tumblr.com/), for the - as always - wonderful beta! <3

The Prime Amendment (Amendment prefacing the Bill of Rights, ratified on Dec., 15th, 1791):

The right of Bonded Soulmates to be secure in their intact and unsevered Bonds shall not be violated, their right to convene and consummate their bond shall not be infringed. No Compromised shall be forcibly parted from their Bondmate under any circumstances. There shall be no exceptions made to this rule. 

.

Harvey can still feel where Mike hit him, even though the fight happened a couple of days ago. The bruises have almost completely faded, and on the outside his face is nearly as unblemished and as perfect as it has ever been. When he looks at his cheekbone in the mirror, he can’t really see anything anymore. But what he can _feel_ , what he can still _feel_ there underneath the now only slightly yellow-ish hue is a completely different story.

Mike’s fists still tear his skin and crash against the bone it just thinly covers, they still split his lip and cut his brow over and over again.

Harvey’s arms rise in defense against those blows when nobody is watching, his fists almost reluctantly trying to cover his face, just to keep up the pretense and to keep Mike going. He needs to allow Mike the maximum access without him even noticing what is really going on.

Only, the hits don’t come anymore, not in broad daylight anyway and not when Harvey looks at himself in the mirror.

Mike is in Danbury now, his hair cut short, and the name he is known by behind those bars is nothing but a mere number – and Harvey, Harvey finds himself in the gym every free minute he has in the midst of the chaos that both his professional and his private lives have become, every minute he is not _there_ , he is not _in there_ with Mike, and every minute he is not fighting to get Mike out. They aren’t many minutes like that.

His defense is weak and always a little half-hearted, and every blow to his body one of his sparring partners manages to land makes him feel numb and dizzy for a few precious moments. They never go for the face though, no matter how hard he tries to lure them into it, and he detests them because of that. Their cowardice leaves him too much space to think. 

For the first thirty eight years of his life Harvey can safely say that he has been happy. Or fairly happy or maybe even just what passes for happy at times, but for the most part, he has been at least okay. Good even, with Jessica sending him to Harvard and then giving him a job and chance after chance after chance and, not to forget, a new family of loyalty and trust.

For the first thirty eight years of his life Harvey has assumed that, if he should ever meet his Soulmate, he’d not be like his father. For thirty eight years he has felt as safe and as untouchable as his mother must have felt back then when what she’d done to his father had almost killed the man. 

For the first thirty eight years of his life Harvey has been sure that he’d be the other one, the one who’d have it easy, the unaffected one. He had thought that he would be like his mother, that he would be able to distance himself and able to put an end to things, at least an end of sorts, just like her.

Never in a million years, let alone in thirty eight would he have thought that _he_ ’d be the Compromised.

Not until one Mike Ross had come crashing into that generic hotel suite, cutting the long, boring line of applicants with a suitcase full of weed, messy hair, a slight sheen of sweat on his face and eyes that Harvey wishes he’d never had to look into.

No, but that’s not exactly true now, is it?

Because if he’s perfectly honest with himself, and there’s no reason, no – there is no possibility _not_ to be, it has taken him a very little bit longer than that to realize.

Yes, there had been that tell-tale lurch in his stomach right in the beginning and his heartbeat had accelerated so much his knees had gone weak and he had had to sit down behind that ridiculous desk in that ridiculous suite. There had been that treacherous sinking feeling and that blinding dizziness when he’d checked if the cops were still there, if they were still looking for Mike, and when his eyes had taken in the other self-appointed prospects waiting patiently in the suite’s antechamber, his fingers had felt numb. That was when he had known that he simply _had_ to hire Mike, no matter what, that there wouldn’t be any way out of it, not then, not ever.

.

Excerpt from ‘The New England Journal of Medicine’ 1973, Vol. 289 No. 11, 545-553, D. Cooper, W.G. Henden, R. Singh: ‘Long- and Shortterm Effects of Forced Separation on the Compromised in Soulbonded Couples’:

“[…] has been proven to cause severe pain and anxiety as shortterm and fatigue (as a result of the sleep deprivation described above (p. 550)) as a longterm effect in 99,9% of the Compromised included in the studies evaluated. 17,3% of the cases ended in the death of the Compromised, and a direct relation of cause ((forced) separation from the Bondmate) and effect (exitus) has been firmly established by the authors of this study. […]”

.

Sending Mike to Harvard to study the facts, customs and whereabouts of his alleged alma mater, to catch up and to make up for five years of actually living there had been the logical thing to do. What Harvey hadn’t expected, though, was the growing uneasiness that had started to blossom inside of him the very moment Mike had left the hotel room, the tenseness, the tender rawness in his throat and the iron clamp around his chest that had kept growing tighter and tighter by the minute, the sleeplessness and the pain. 

By the end of the week he’d been more worn out than after the four weeks of his childhood’s first boxing camp, but it hadn’t been until he had walked into his office that following Monday morning and had seen Mike standing there that he had finally realized, finally understood the reason for all of that.

The moment he had laid eyes on Mike, he had felt as if a deadly leaden weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. For the first time in over a week he had been able to breathe freely again, and from one second to the next the pain gnawing away at his insides had been almost gone. Not just numbed or wrestled into a cowering, nagging throb in the very core of his being – but as close to gone, to truly and utterly gone as he had ever dared to hope for.

That had been the exact moment when he had known. And it had just taken him a split second to decide that he had to put an end to this before it would really be too late. He had known that he had to get rid of Mike as soon as possible, so the first thing he had said to him, to that exciting, smiling face with those pink lips and those irritating exuberant, glittering eyes, the first thing he had said to him was: “I’ve got to let you go.”

It hadn’t worked. Of course it hadn’t. On the contrary – all Harvey had been able to do was to hire Mike back practically just minutes later and make sure that he’d stay and stay close. Still, the hours they were forced to spent apart each day and each night had continued to be sheer torture and the longer those hours stretched, the worse it became. 

From then on, it stayed with him and it still never changes. It has stayed with him day and night over the years and there’s never any moment of respite.

In the mornings it feels as if his lungs are at only half their capacity at best, and more often than not his need to see Mike, to be close to him, threatens to overwhelm him while he’s still in the back of the car or in the elevator on its way up to his office, and when he looks at himself in the tainted windows or in the elevator’s mirror, he sees the shadow of a man he once used to be.

The very moment he sees Mike he becomes himself again.

So he lets Mike barge into his office and work there whenever Mike feels like it, and those are the best times, really, the hours they spend working together in the same room, sometimes even at the same table. The only thing that’s better, though, is when he has Mike in the back of the town car, all to himself, the sides of their bodies almost touching. So, naturally, he starts to take Mike with him everywhere he goes – to meetings with clients, to depositions, to court hearings, to trials. 

He knows that people have begun to notice something long ago, and there are some fleeting moments when he fears that Mike might get shit for that from Louis or the other associates, but thankfully his reputation keeps people from mentioning anything about it to Mike or to himself. Well, that of course excludes Jessica, who never refrains from remarking on and mocking the foolishness that has been his hiring “that goddamn kid”, especially after she finds out that Mike doesn’t even hold a law degree and is an immense threat to the firm as well as to her as the managing partner.

Harvey thinks that, after a while and after a series of incidents, she must know or at least suspect the true reason behind it all, but even if she does, she never says anything else to his face.

.

Excerpt from ‘Heaney vs. Heaney’ 533 U.S. 483 (2001):

“[…] thus reinforcing the ruling that the Bondmate may not seek separation from the Compromised as to ensure the Compromised’s physical and psychological integrity and wellbeing. The Bondmate therefore remains lawfully obligated to […]”

.

There are many times Harvey contemplates letting Mike know. He can see both the affection and the attraction in Mike’s eyes, they are both clearly there, and sometimes his defenses are so worn down that he almost takes that last breath before he tells Mike everything. When Mike leaves the firm to become an investment banker and to work as such for Jonathan Sidwell of all people. When Mike comes back, back to the firm, back to his old life, back to Harvey, back where he belongs. When Harvey thinks Mike might leave the firm again, for good this time, to go and work for Robert Zane. When Mike and Rachel become engaged. 

But he never does. He tells Paula, though, his goddamn therapist. She’s the only one he ever tells because he needs her help to get through all of this, especially the nights, by teaching him fucking breathing techniques to ease the pain and prescribing pills that place weights on his eyelids, that at least close them for a while and make his mind stop racing in the dark. More often than not she urges him to talk to Mike, to let him know, to reveal himself to him, but he always, always rejects that distant option, that very thought even. 

It’s not what Mike needs and it’s not what he wants. While a part of him might long and hunger for Mike and while that might even be the bigger, the much bigger part, there’s that other part as well, the part that knows what’s going to happen should he ever allow himself to give in. He’s seen that with his parents and he is not going to let that happen to him, he’s not going to be gutted like that. And he is most certainly not going to let it happen to Mike. And maybe, maybe, if he just lets things be, if he just doesn’t touch them, if he just doesn’t think about them too often, those things will one day just _be_ , just _things_ , nothing more, and Mike can take off and live his own life without having all this hovering over his head, without knowing and without the obligation that would inevitably come for him with a knowledge like that tying him down.

And for a while Harvey thinks that they might be okay like this. He learns how to breathe through all of it almost normally, and the pills finally seem to kick in the way Paula has promised they would one day. For a while Harvey thinks they might just get by.

But then the shit really hits the fan. Mike decides to leave, for real this time, for good, to build a family of his own. But before he can do any of that he gets arrested, the cardboard box filled with his personal belongings still in his hands, and all of their efforts to prevent the worst, the unthinkable, prove to be in vain in the end. Harvey can’t count the moments during those weeks when he almost, almost tells Mike, tells Cahill, tells Gibbs, tells the judge, spills the beans in the courtroom in front of that goddamn jury. 

He never does, though, because he knows that, and especially if it does come to the worst, Mike doesn’t need this. He doesn’t need to know, not now, not like this. If it comes to the worst, Mike doesn’t need one more thing to worry about.

And then, when it is over, when the trial is over because Mike beats him to taking Gibbs’s deal by mere fucking seconds and there is nothing more that Harvey can do, he doesn’t know how to go on anymore, what to do next, so he provokes Mike into hitting him, pretending to be trying to get him ready to fight and survive in jail. And when that is over as well, when his one last attempt to get Mike to let _him_ take the punishment doesn’t work, Harvey refuses to let go of Mike unless he absolutely has to.

.

Excerpt from Gordon Specter’s diary, entry dated ‘Sunday, June, 3rd, 2007’:

“Not much happened this week. Talked to M., played 2 gigs with the band at Moe’s. 2 more scheduled for next week. Tried to call H. but couldn’t reach him. L. is leaving town with B. for two weeks, so our time on Wed. is cancelled, same on Sat. and next Tue. Distinctly remember how dismal last time went. Weather should be better this time, though. Will try to get outside at least occasionally. Maybe play some ball if I can. Call H. again, see if they made him partner yet. Talking to him seems to help. Hands are shaking and there’s a difficulty breathing. Running a fever. Can’t play, will have to cancel those gigs. Two weeks. Should be interesting. Let’s see how it goes.”

.

So the next day he is there, at the church, at Mike’s side, despite everything, of course he is, and when Mike comes walking out a short time later, still not married and still going to prison, Harvey is there. He sits next to Mike all the way to Danbury, has him almost to himself in the back of the car for one last time, and when Mike can’t breathe he helps him take off his tie as if it were nothing. He waits patiently in the back seat when Mike yells for Ray to stop the car and when he stumbles out blindly to puke his guts out at the side of the godforsaken highway. 

He has to lean back against the hood of the car while he watches Mike walk away along the never-ending passage way and into Danbury, his nails almost leaving scratches in the shining black varnish, bile rising in his throat. 

Two years. Two fucking years sound so much longer than anything Harvey can even imagine, and it is all his fault, literally everything is happening because of him, because he hadn’t been strong enough to nip this whole fiasco in the bud six years ago. 

The first night with Mike inside is worse than all of the other nights before crammed into one. Worry adds to pain, he’s shaking with raw panic, and even a double dose of meds doesn’t help.

Harvey is so tired and worn out the following morning that for a moment he thinks he might even have a chance to make it through this whole mess just because of that, the fatigue numbing the constant ache that by now defines his body, his mind and his soul. But all of that changes when he sees Mike in the visitation room a few hours later, his face bruised and his posture closed off and carefully guarded. In that one moment pain and panic take over again and the sleepless night becomes nothing but a blurry memory.

He almost does something stupid right there and then, but Mike’s silently searing anger and his defensive rage advise him otherwise.

Mike doesn’t need this, especially not now, so Harvey just leaves again with a ball of white hot iron in his stomach and a hole in his heart that’s wider than his chest. The way people look at him during the next couple of days tells him that everyone can see – and while they may not understand, while they still may not understand, they see. 

He’s glad that Mike doesn’t have the presence of mind to notice as well at the moment, that he’s too focused on himself and on surviving in there, with Gallo as a constant threat looming in the background. Harvey talks to Gibbs again, to Sean Cahill even, but there’s nothing they can do, nothing he can do. It’s devastating.

It gets worse every day, Mike’s face looks shallower and the circles under his eyes are darker every time Harvey comes to see him. Harvey knows whenever something is wrong, whenever there has been another encounter, another threat, another violation. He knows by the way Mike carries himself, by the way he sits down and flinches, even if it’s the most subtle flinch Harvey has ever just barely registered. Mike is hurting, he’s physically hurting, and it is showing, Harvey can see it very clearly, and the pain of knowing that the physical part is just the tip of the iceberg is worse than anything else. 

And then it comes – the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back. It happens on a Wednesday, on a sunny Wednesday morning, when Harvey has Ray drive him to see Mike before his noon meeting and Mike doesn’t say anything for most of the thirty minutes they’re in that small room together. 

Mike is pale and his lips are pressed into a thin line and his gaze is unfocused, but no matter what Harvey does, no matter what he says or how he tries to coax Mike out of the shell he has withdrawn into, no matter how much he threatens, reasons or cajoles, Mike stays silent. All he says is that he’s all right and that there is nothing Harvey has to worry about. 

It’s a blatant lie, and a bitter taste creeps onto Harvey’s tongue because of its enormity. Mike has never lied to him like that, not when it comes to something so vitally important. It’s the first time he sees the prison’s visitor’s bathroom and for a moment there, when his knees give in and he empties the contents of his stomach into one of the lidless steel toilets, he fears that the paramedics will have to come in for him. His skin is as thin as paper when he leaves, and when Gallo approaches him again outside, when he grabs hold of the metal fence and shakes it, shakes it right into Harvey’s sweaty face, when he tells Harvey to his face how lovely a night he’s just had and how sweet Mike is to the taste, Harvey’s knees almost give in again right there and he finally has had enough.

He orders Ray to drive him directly to Gibbs’s office and once he’s there he all but jumps out of the car and runs up the stairs because there is no way he’ll wait for that fucking elevator in a lobby full of people just salivating for a scandal.

“He’s getting out,” is the first thing out of his mouth once he’s past the secretary and through that door, and when Gibbs looks up from her paper work, when she looks up at him over the rims of her glasses he realizes that his voice must sound at least as hoarse as it feels. “He’s getting out _today_ ,” he spits, and when Gibbs’s brows furrow in confusion, he clarifies. “Right now.”

“What do you think—“

That’s as far as Gibbs gets, as far as she’ll ever get again if it were up to Harvey.

“ _Now_ ,” he barks, and when Gibbs puts her pen down and rises from her chair, utter bewilderment as well as her characteristic stubbornness and defiance clearly written on her face, the words are out of Harvey’s mouth before he can even properly think them.

“You’re breaking the fucking law by keeping him in there, by—by keeping us apart.” There it is, out in the open.

The silence that follows rings in Harvey’s ears, and there’s that bitterness again at the back of his throat, so he swallows against it time after time until Gibbs hands him a glass of water. His hand is shaking as he accepts it from her, and he takes a couple of greedy gulps, spilling some of the lukewarm liquid onto the ugly, run-down carpet on the office’s floor.

“Why didn’t he say anything?” she asks, her voice much softer than Harvey ever would have thought possible. It’s that tone of voice, really, not what she’s saying, not the fact that she isn’t asking any other questions, that tells Harvey that she understands. “Why didn’t he use that in court?”

“He doesn’t know,” Harvey says tonelessly, setting the glass down on Gibbs’s desk. “He…”

“Oh,” is all Gibbs says, her eyes widening behind her glasses, taking him in. 

All he can do is nod. 

“Yeah.”

“What—“ She clears her throat and leads him to the sofa in the back corner of the room. Harvey hasn’t noticed it before so he blinks a couple of times before a light pressure on his arm reminds him what a sofa is there for in the first place. There’s a dull throb humming through him and he feels heavy, every part of his body feels so incredibly heavy, so he simply gives in and lets her sit him down. “What are you on?” she asks, and he looks up at her sitting across the coffee table, her glasses now in her hands and her eyes a little narrowed.

“Everything you can think of,” he says.

“Do you sleep?”

Harvey shakes his head. He doesn’t quite understand why she’s asking him all those questions, but he doesn’t really care either so he might as well answer them.

“You shouldn’t be working.” So that’s where she’s going with this, she’s trying to get him disbarred. She’s not wrong, though. He shouldn’t.

“I know.”

She uncrosses her legs and nods. “I’ll order his release immediately. And you see that you get home.” She rises and walks over to the door. “You should tell him,” she says as she opens it for him. “He has a right to know.”

“Thanks,” is all he says before he leaves. On his way down he takes the elevator and once he’s home he loosens his tie, stumbles into the bedroom and drops onto the bed like a dead weight. His eyes hurt even worse when he closes them so he keeps them open until the stars dancing on the ceiling fade away and the world becomes blurry around the edges.

He counts his heartbeats, but he loses track somewhere in the upper thousands and lets his mind go blank for he doesn’t know how long, allowing the pain to run wherever it wants to go inside of him. He’s fairly confident that there will be an end to all of this soon, his body has already begun to shut down, and he’s tired of fighting it, so he’ll just let it happen, just like everything else, there is nothing more he can do.

An irregularity shakes him back to his senses, then another one, even stronger than the first. He jolts upright and tears at his tie, his fingers trembling as they pry his collar button open. His palms are sweaty and there’s that ringing in his ears again, that deafening silence that makes his mouth fill with saliva. He swallows and shakes his head quickly, but he freezes in mid movement when there’s another irregularity threatening to take his breath away.

Only it’s not. It’s not his heart, it’s a noise at the door. Someone is knocking on his door, banging against it, loudly and insistently, again and again. 

Harvey has to hold on to the kitchen island as he makes his way through the living room, and his fingers keep contact with the hallway’s wall on his way to the door.

It’s Mike, who else would it be, and he’s sweating and his face is red and angry and he’s out, out, out. He’s here, he’s here at Harvey’s door, and Harvey can feel his whole body opening up to his presence, trying to drink Mike in, dying with a thirst for something that he can never have. So all he does is stare at Mike as he walks past him and strides along the dark corridor into the equally dark apartment.

As if in trance Harvey closes the door and follows Mike into the living room, switching on the lights on his way, blinking against the sudden brightness. 

“When were you planning to tell me?” Mike spits and whirls around to face him. “Harvey?”

Mike’s voice is sharp and as hard as steel. His eyes bore into Harvey’s and they’re spiked with something that Harvey can’t quite name. 

“I wasn’t.”

Harvey runs his hand over his mouth and looks at the floor for a moment before he raises his head again and holds Mike’s gaze.

“You look like shit,” Mike says, tilting his head, and then he takes a step towards Harvey and then another and another.

“No,” Harvey says, rising his hand, and Mike freezes dead in his tracks almost immediately. “Don’t.”

“God, you’re such an idiot,” Mike says, and a tenderness creeps into his voice that makes Harvey feel drunk with longing. 

“You should go.”

“The hell I will.”

Mike can be so stubborn, so incredibly, annoyingly stubborn, and Harvey is sure he can’t take much more of this. For the first time he thinks that Mike’s presence might be worse than his absence. 

“Go,” he whispers, closing his eyes and balling his hands into tight fists. “Please, Mike…”

He can hear how Mike comes closer and closer and he can feel how he finally closes the distance between them completely. He can feel how Mike leans in and how Mike’s breath touches his face, his cheek, his ear.

“Rachel and I are done,” Mike whispers, his lips almost brushing against Harvey’s over-sensitized skin.

Every pore, every fiber of Harvey’s being cries out for Mike, and Mike is so close it becomes almost unbearable. His fingernails dig into his palms so hard he’s sure that there’s going to be blood.

“Mike,” he tries one more time, but he already knows that, should Mike stay just one second longer, he’s going to be lost.

“I left her the moment I got out. We were already over when I left her at the altar. I realized that once I saw you waiting there for me, outside the church.”

Harvey bites his lips when Mike’s hand touches his arm. It feels so good it hurts. 

“I knew that I had to end it, I knew that as soon as I _knew_ ,” Mike goes on, and the heat radiating from his body makes Harvey dizzy with need. He smells absolutely intoxicating. “About you, I mean,” he says. “About us. And I _knew_ the second the guards told me I was free to go. I knew then that it was you. I mean, I knew that I’m your—”

“Mike, we can’t—“

“Yes, we can,” Mike says, and Harvey can feel him nod. “Rachel knew, too, immediately. When I told her I was leaving, she knew why. She understands. She knows that there is no way around this, that there is no other way, not for us.”

“Mike, you—“

“Harvey,” Mike says and takes a step backwards.

Harvey’s eyes slowly open and Mike is still there and his hair is ruffled and messy just like that first day in that stupid Chilton suite and his cheeks are just as rosy pink and his lips…

Harvey’s tongue darts out and runs over his lower lip. Mike is just standing there and keeps looking at him and it is driving Harvey insane. “You don’t want this,” he says.

“What,” Mike says. He pauses and tilts his head just so. “What _on earth_ would make you think I wouldn’t want this? Now that I know I can have this, now that I finally know?”

“What?”

In a way, Harvey does realize that Mike is talking, even that he’s talking to him, but he can’t make any sense of the words that are pouring from his mouth.

“What do you mean?”

“I wanted you, Harvey. I have always wanted you, you must have known that, I know you have. But I thought…” He steps closer again and takes Harvey’s loose tie between his fingers, letting them run over the exquisite fabric. “I never thought, not in my wildest dreams…”

“Mike, I—“

And once again, Mike cuts into Harvey’s words like the subtlest of knives.

“Will you stop being so goddamn stubborn now and let me touch you?” He raises his hand until his fingertips are almost touching Harvey’s jaw. His head tilts in an unspoken question.

.

Excerpt from Gordon Specter’s diary, entry dated ‘Friday, June, 8th, 2007’:

“Alone. Everything hurts. Can’t breathe. Can’t play. Still feverish. Scared.”

.

Harvey closes his eyes and swallows. Mike’s fingers ghost over his skin, never quite touching him for real, and for a second or two Harvey is sure that this is what drowning must feel like. He clenches his jaws and releases a shaky breath, he inhales again, deeply, deliberately, and squares his shoulders. When he opens his eyes again, Mike is looking at his lips and he’s smiling. Harvey takes a step backwards and clears his throat. He can’t do this. This is not who he is, not who he wants to be, and certainly not what Mike needs right now, at the beginning of his new life as a free man.

“You should go,” Harvey says and for a moment he thinks that maybe Mike hasn’t heard him because he just keeps looking at his lips and smiling that irritating, faint little smile of his.

But then he raises his head and their eyes meet. Mike holds his gaze for the longest time and Harvey fights back with everything he has left. Then Mike bites his lips and shakes his head.

“Jesus, Harvey,” he murmurs and shakes his head again. “What the hell…”

Harvey stands his ground even though his legs feel shaky and his head is spinning. He balls his hands into fists once more, and it even occurs to him that he’s been doing that a lot lately, and he raises his chin, willing Mike to finally break down and leave. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do if Mike doesn’t.

“Jesus…” Mike runs the back of his hand over his mouth and shakes his head one more time before he turns around but then he stops again and turns back to Harvey. He takes a quick breath and opens his mouth but Harvey cuts him short before he can say anything.

“Wait,” Harvey says, and Mike flinches at the harshness in Harvey’s voice. Harvey hesitates for a split second but then he walks over to his desk in the corner and retrieves a thick manila envelope from one of the drawers. “Here, take this,” he says, holding the envelope out to Mike who takes it from him with a questioning look on his face. “I found this among my father’s belongings after he’d died. Copies. Clippings. He must have collected them for decades, even before they separated. And his diary. Never knew he kept one until then. Read it.”

“Okay,” Mike says, staring at the package in his hands. He doesn’t move for the longest time but Harvey keeps standing his ground. Mike needs to see this, he needs to know.

Then, finally, Mike turns around and leaves.

Harvey can hear his measured steps and the pause, the moment of piercing silence before he opens the door and steps outside. One, two, three – three seconds before the door falls shut behind Mike, and the breath he’s been holding whooshes from Harvey’s lungs. He takes a short step after Mike but then he stops again and turns around. His hand blindly reaches out and grabs hold of the kitchen counter just in time to steady him when he staggers. It takes him several minutes to even his breathing and to clear his senses enough to make his way to the bedroom and to drop onto the mattress feeling even heavier than a few hours before.

Luckily, his meds are stored within an arm’s reach in the bedside table’s drawer. When he looks at his open palm, there are two more than the maximum amount he should take, Paula has made that very clear, but he really needs to catch at least an hour or two of sleep tonight. He rolls onto his back and closes his eyes.

When sleep won’t come, not even after another pill and another hour, he sits up in the dark, listening to the erratic flutter of his heart. The numbness in his chest and the taste of fatigue on his tongue are almost blacking out the pain, and for a second Harvey thinks that that might be a good thing.

The sound of his cell phone vibrating on the kitchen counter startles him from his stupor and he stares at the light coming from the small screen across the dark room, his fingers fisting into the fabric of the sheets and his shirt sticking to his clammy skin. It’s cold and Harvey shivers. 

The phone finally stops ringing but it takes Harvey another five minutes to rise from the bed and to walk over to where it is lying in the dark.

Mike has called him three times since he’s left and there are a couple of messages as well. Harvey swallows thickly and clears his throat twice before he scrolls through them.

_I’m at the old apartment._

_Come over._

_Harvey, come over._

_Okay, I’ll be here when you’re ready._

_Whenever you’re ready._

_God, you’re really such an idiot. Answer the fucking phone._

_I…_

Harvey stares at the cell phone’s screen until his eyes burn. He nearly drops the phone when it starts vibrating again in his hand. Mike, the screen says. Mike. Three missed calls. Mike. Mike. Mike.

Make that four. Mike.

This time, there’s only the briefest of pauses before the next call cuts through Harvey’s bones. Mike.

Harvey bites his lips. It doesn’t stop, the fucking phone just doesn’t stop, and Mike’s name vibrates through his whole body until he can’t take it anymore.

“Yeah.”

His voice sounds rough and raw in the darkness of his living room, and the floor beneath his feet feels harder and more solid than ever. He can hear Mike’s sharp exhale before he speaks.

“Harvey.”

“Yeah.”

“Thank god. Are you—“

“I’m—“

Mike chuckles at the other end of the line, and Harvey bites the insides of his cheeks so hard he tastes blood.

“He died because she left,” he says without preamble when Mike doesn’t speak again. “They’d been separated for ages and she still had to… She left town for a couple of days, he let her go and then he died.” Maybe Mike needs him to spell it out like that, so he does. Better safe than sorry.

Mike exhales shakily, and Harvey can hear him swallow.

“Harvey, that’s—“

“I don’t want that on you,” Harvey interrupts, and after a short, heavy pause, he adds: “I don’t want you to… You shouldn’t have to carry something like that, carry that kind of… burden. You should be free to live your life without any of that.”

“Harvey, you—” Mike tries again, but Harvey is having none of that. He needs to get this over with once and for all, it has gone way too far already.

“He died because she left, and I was so angry with her for it for so long. I couldn’t forgive her for most of my life and I resented her. You shouldn’t have to live through something like that. It… If you want to leave.”

“Harvey,” Mike says for the third time, and this time Harvey is too tired to fight back. He steels himself for what is coming next. He can’t blame Mike, though. He has every right to walk away while he still can.

Harvey closes his eyes and holds his breath.

“This has nothing to do with us. I’m not like her. We’re not them.”

“What?” This is not going as planned, and Harvey’s stomach lurches and his heartbeat quickens. This is not going as Harvey needs it to go at all.

“We’re different. That is not what’s going to happen with us.”

“You can’t know that,” Harvey shoots back, nestling at his collar again. There’s still not enough air in this room, and he’s getting dizzy with the lack of it.

“I can. I do.”

Mike sounds so convinced, so sure, and Harvey hates the spark of hope that blossoms in his chest and that he’s simply unable to quench. Such a foolish sentiment, such a weak, despicable spark, but proves to be stronger than anything Harvey can muster against it.

“Harvey,” Mike says, and the way he says it causes Harvey’s heart to skip a beat. Maybe Mike is right, maybe they’re different after all. “Please.”

“No,” he says, but the flutter in his chest tells him that the battle is lost. 

“Are you coming over now?”

“No.”

Harvey knows that he’s lying even before Mike can reply. His keys are already in his hand after all and the sound of the door falling shut behind him is drowned by the chime of the elevator as its doors slide open.

“Okay.”

“Yeah,” Harvey says as he steps into the cabin and pushes the button for the parking garage. “I’ve got to go.”

“Okay,” Mike says again, and Harvey ends the call before he can say anything else. Halfway down to the garage, he rubs his palms against his thighs and frowns. Somewhere in the back of his mind a warning bell goes off and he pushes the button above P before it is too late. He really shouldn’t be driving after all the pills he’s had and with his pulse running so high. It’s still a little hard to breathe but as soon as he steps outside and into the fresh night air, it becomes a little easier.

The first cab Harvey tries to hail passes him by, and his breathing hitches. He tries to swallow against the rising panic but his throat hurts too much. This can’t be happening, not to him and certainly not now, not when he finally—

The next cab he hails pulls up at the curb next to him and the driver’s brows furrow when Harvey tells him where he needs to go. Harvey doesn’t understand why and he’s about to open his mouth and say something when his phone buzzes in his pocket. Mike, of course, it’s another message from Mike.

_Where are you?_

_Cab_ , he texts back, fastening his seat belt.

_Good. Hurry._

_Traffic’s thick._

_Just hurry, please._

The cab stops at yet another red light and Harvey groans under his breath. Why are there so many cars on the streets at this hour of the night to begin with and why is everyone driving so slowly? 

The light turns green but nothing is moving. Harvey groans again and digs his nails into the muscle of his thigh. Chances are, there will be bruises tomorrow.

His driver mutters something in a language Harvey doesn’t understand and slams his hand against the steering wheel, the sound of the horn causing Harvey’s heartbeat to stutter.

 _You don’t want this_ , Harvey types but he deletes the message again after just a few seconds without sending it. He watches the cursor eat his words, letter by letter, and he takes a deep breath to calm his nerves. They’re still in Manhattan and his driver hits the horn again, changing lanes in a hazardous maneuver when the car in front of them abruptly comes to a halt. 

_What’s taking you so long?_

_Still stuck in traffic_ , Harvey texts, leaning forward to try and get a peek at what’s going on in the street ahead of them, and his eyes catch a faint blue flicker. I think there has been an accident.

_I don’t know how you got through it. All this time._

Of course Harvey knows what Mike is talking about. How can he not know? But maybe, maybe Mike doesn’t know _that._

_What?_

_How did you get through it all this time? I mean, I know that you’re just on the other side of the river and it’s still killing me to be apart._

Harvey blinks and before he can reply, there’s another message.

_How did you not die?_

Leave it to Mike to ask the one question Harvey has been avoiding for years – just like that.

_I don’t know. I couldn’t._

The cab moves forward at an agonizingly slow pace, the flashing blue lights of an ambulance getting closer as they approach the accident site. It’d probably be faster to walk, Harvey thinks, and for a moment he contemplates throwing the driver a fifty and getting off right there and then, but then they drive by the ambulance and there are police cars as well and a completely demolished bike. 

Harvey tries not to look, he stares straight ahead for as long as possible, but in the one second he does turn his head he sees a bloody messenger bag lying there on the tarred road surface and a young man in a suit being rushed to the ambulance on a stretcher, his battered face covered by an oxygen mask. Harvey’s mouth goes dry, and when the knot in traffic finally dissolves and the car accelerates, he feels dizzy for a moment.

 _I’ll be there in ten_ , he texts as they make their way onto the bridge, and he leans back, trying to relax his muscles at least a little bit.

_Good._

The last ten minutes of the drive go by in a blur, and before he knows it, Harvey is standing on the second floor and in front of the door to Mike’s old apartment. He never knew Mike had kept it but he’s glad that he did. The smell in the run down staircase is still the same and even the dents and scratches in the wood of the door haven’t changed. It feels as if no time has passed since the last time Harvey has been here.

He takes a deep breath and knocks, and just a second later the door swings open.

Mike.

“There’s been an accident,” Harvey blurts out, staring at Mike’s pale face. “At the foot of the bridge. A car and… It had run over a bike. It—it could have been you.”

“It wasn’t,” Mike says, and when Harvey doesn’t move, he repeats it. “It wasn’t me, Harvey. Look at me. I’m all right. Look. It wasn’t me.”

“You,” Harvey says but something is wrong with his throat. His voice sounds kind of stuck and it feels as if the air is so thick it’s almost impossible to breathe. He clears his throat and tries again. “You could have died in prison.”

“I know,” Mike replies, biting his lips. “But I didn’t.”

The next breath Harvey takes is filled with the scent of Mike and his lips tingle with the vibrations his muttered words cause against the skin of Mike’s throat. 

“Thank god…”

He holds Mike close, as close as he can, and he kisses Mike’s throat, his jaw, his cheek, his eyes and, finally, his lips. “Thank god, thank god…”

“Harvey,” Mike whispers, and his hold on Harvey tightens even more. “Please…”

“Oh god, Mike…”

Mike tastes like heaven. There is no better way to describe it, there is no need for more elaborate words, just these: Mike tastes like heaven, and he’s all Harvey wants, all he needs.

It feels so good to finally be able to hold Mike, to touch him for real, deliberately and with purpose, to feel his heart beating in his chest and in the pulse against his lips. All the pain that has accumulated inside of him over the past six years is just a faint humming throb now, so subtle it’s almost exquisite, and what’s left of it is brushed away by Mike’s lips and tongue and touch.

“I—“ Harvey tries to say, and again, “I—“

“Shhhhhhhh, don’t worry…” Mike kisses his words away before they can even form, just catches them while they’re still just thoughts, and the echo of them is so sweet on Mike’s lips it is almost unbearable. “Don’t worry about it… Shhhhhhhh, shhhhhhhh…”

Mike’s fingers make quick work of Harvey’s tie and the buttons of his shirt, and Harvey undresses Mike as well with trembling hands and filled with an ever-growing need. 

Harvey knows that once he has had this, once he has been with Mike, there will be nobody else for him ever again. And even though Harvey is sure Mike knows all of this, he’s desperate to tell him, to make it clear to him once and for all, to give him that one last way out. So he babbles those words against Mike’s lips and into their kisses, and Mike just nods and lets his hands slip past Harvey’s open waistband and pushes his trousers down over his hips.

“I know,” he mutters, licking over Harvey’s Adam’s apple. “Yeah, I know, I know…”

And when Harvey’s palms finally come to rest against Mike’s fluttering heartbeat, Mike throws his head back and moans. “Oh god… I want you so much… Oh my god…” Mike’s hips buck forward, and Harvey can feel how hard he is, just as hard as he is himself.

Harvey hadn’t thought it possible to want Mike even more than he already has wanted him since the moment he first saw him, but if he’s perfectly honest, he knows that that’s not entirely true. With every second they spend together, touching, kissing, drinking each other in, his need for Mike grows until it’s stronger than anything Harvey has ever known – except maybe for Mike’s beautiful surrender.

Mike gives Harvey his all, and that hurts even more than the absence and the distance. It’s all-consuming, and Harvey knows that once they do this, he won’t ever be the same again. 

Harvey gasps, fighting against the flood of Mike’s kisses with waves of his own, yet he’s drowning in Mike’s passion nevertheless. Somewhere in the back of his mind he registers that they’re both naked by now and that his finger, his spit-slick finger, is pushing against Mike’s entrance and that Mike is begging him, he’s begging him for something and whatever that something might be, Harvey knows that he’d give his life over and over again to give it to Mike, no matter what. Giving Mike what he’s begging for becomes vital and Harvey’s only reason to keep breathing. 

The next thing he knows is that they’re in the bedroom and Mike is lying on the bed before him, his legs spread open and his hand reaching out for him, seeking to pull him close once more. 

“Mike,” he moans when he sinks down onto the mattress, on top of Mike, and when their bodies align, when skin touches skin, he says it again. “Oh god, Mike…”

“Pleaseplease _please_ ,” is what Mike breathes into Harvey’s ear, is what Mike’s fingers write all over Harvey’s back and his arms and his sides and deep into the walls of his heart and soul. It’s impossible to not follow that call, that plea, so when their kiss breaks for a moment, for a breathless second, and their eyes meet, Harvey gives in. He’s right there, Mike is right there, his Soulmate, his other half, and Harvey knows that he’s finally going to allow himself to claim him for his own. 

“Oh my god,” Mike whispers and his eyes widen. A desperate moan builds in his chest and his hips jerk. “Harvey…” Mike pulls him close and pants his release against his pulse point, against that special spot where his life is closest to the surface. It lasts forever, Mike spilling himself out for him, covering their skin with spurts of hot come, and Harvey holds him close and just lets him ride those waves until they finally ebb and Mike moans his name once more. “Harvey…”

Harvey can feel a smile forming on his lips and he raises his head. Mike’s face is wet with sweat and tears, and when Harvey runs his hand over Mike’s forehead, when he smoothes back Mike’s messy hair, the sensation against his palm and fingertips is so delicate it’s breathtaking.

“Hey,” he smiles and places a soft kiss onto Mike’s lips. They must still be tingling from the way Mike has just bitten them, just like Harvey’s own lips are. “You’re so beautiful...” He flexes his hips and draws another moan from Mike’s lungs, a weak, but almost painful one, and he can feel how Mike is still hard between their bodies.

“Please,” Mike whispers and swallows. His eyes flutter shut and he bites his lips again as his cock twitches against Harvey’s. “Oh, please…”

There is no way Harvey can prepare Mike as thoroughly as he’d want to with Mike urging him on with every move and every sound he makes, with him whispering tempting, deliciously dirty things into Harvey’s ear, promises and praise, and with his body screaming for Harvey’s touch. But Harvey still tries his best, he coaxes Mike’s body open with trembling fingers and luscious amounts of lube until Mike is shaking with need and begging him for more.

The feeling of sliding into Mike, of burying himself in Mike’s tight heat inch by inch is indescribable. It’s like nothing Harvey has ever felt or dreamt of and when he’s fully sheathed, he’s overcome with a sensation of completion that blows his mind away and bursts his heart and soul wide open. In that moment he finds himself for the very first time, he finds himself in that body, and he utterly loses everything he has ever been at the same time. He forgets where he ends and where Mike begins and he doesn’t even care because it doesn’t matter anymore. His body is burning with Mike’s touch and his mind is spinning with his scent and taste, and when he starts to move and Mike tightens around him, he almost blacks out.

He forces his eyes to open and he finds Mike staring at him, drinking him in with eyes as deep and as dark as the city night’s sky. “You’re everything,” he whispers as he pushes back in and enters Mike once more. “Everything.”

Mike moans and raises his upper body, chasing after Harvey’s lips, and Harvey gathers Mike in his arms and holds him close against himself, so close, and he can feel his cock sliding even deeper into Mike’s heat and swelling in there even more and all of this is so good it hurts. 

Mike’s legs wrap around Harvey’s body and his hips roll, pushing down even more, swallowing him whole. He’s impossibly tight, and Harvey knows that if he doesn’t start moving soon he’s not going to survive this. So he shoves Mike down onto the mattress again and lifts his body up a little, his fingers digging into Mike’s side, leaving precious, beautiful marks on Mike’s pale, perfect skin. 

“Yeah,” Mike moans and throws his head back in pleasure. “Yeah, yeah…” He tightens his muscles around Harvey, urging him on, his body calling out to Harvey’s, begging for more, closer, deeper, _more_ , and Harvey’s body obeys. 

Harvey slides in and out of Mike, at first with long, deliberate thrusts, but they become more and more erratic and shallow the closer they both get to the point of no return. Mike’s fingers are iron claws around Harvey’s upper arms and when they finally loosen and travel down Harvey’s back, down his spine and over his cheeks, they leave fiery traces on his skin, invisible marks that he will carry for the rest of his life.

Harvey has been with many women and with many men in his life but nothing has prepared him for the moment he falls. It’s unlike anything else, it’s a blinding explosion and a soft, tender wave at the same time and it changes him forever, inside and out. He thinks he actually screams when his climax hits him and his eyes water with the beauty of the pleasure that washes over him. 

Mike’s muscles tighten and his whole body goes rigid for a moment, frozen on the edge, between his old life and this new one. And then he comes, which feels even better, even more intense and intimate than Harvey’s own orgasm still surging inside of him and claiming his senses. It’s the sweetest thing, there are no other words to describe it. It’s everything. 

Harvey pulls Mike close and holds him against his chest while Mike sobs his release against Harvey’s burning skin. “Oh god,” is what Mike moans, over and over, as he empties himself again. “Oh my god, oh my god…”

This is when Harvey dies and this is when he is reborn. Mike’s breath dances on his skin and his name lingers on his lips, and for the first time since they’ve met all those years ago, Harvey is free of pain.

He knows that whatever happens from now on, this is who he is. He knows that he is bound to Mike now, that he has always been bound to him and that there is no shame in that. He knows that he would die for Mike and he knows that one day he will. And he knows that now Mike is bound to him as well.

There are no more questions. There’s just this knowledge and this sense of the world finally shifting into place.

“I love you,” Mike whispers into Harvey’s ear, and Harvey closes his eyes. He can’t say it, not yet, but he is confident that some day soon he will. But for now he wills Mike to know what he can’t put into words just yet.

“I love you,” Mike says again and one more time when Harvey’s softened cock slips from his body and Harvey moans with the loss. “I know.”

Harvey rolls onto his back and pulls Mike on top of him. He nuzzles his sweaty hair, inhaling deeply.

“You—“ He pauses when Mike snuggles closer and throws both an arm and a leg over him. It’s a bit like a blanket, a living, breathing, loving blanket, and it makes Harvey smile. “You didn’t want this,” he says, running his fingers gently up and down Mike’s arm. “Didn’t need this.”

“It’s all I’ve ever wanted,” Mike says, circling Harvey’s nipple with his fingertip, once, twice and a third time. “All I will ever need.”

“But you didn’t know.”

“In a way,” Mike says after a short pause, “I think I always knew. It’s just a bit hard to wrap my mind around how you never told me.”

“I know,” Harvey says and places a gentle kiss on the crown of Mike’s head before he reaches down and lifts Mike’s face up with a finger to his chin. “I’m sorry.”

“I get it, you know.” Mike kisses him softly and for some reason he’s still smiling. “Why you didn’t tell me, I mean. I get it. But…” Another kiss and another smile. “Let the record show that you’re a goddamn idiot.” Mike rises a little and reaches down to pull the covers up over them. “Now get some sleep, okay?”

“Okay,” Harvey says, but that’s not what he does. He catches Mike’s lips again and kisses him, languidly, softly, deeply, for the next couple of hours. And Mike never lets go. 

“Greedy,” he murmurs into the kiss at some point of time when Harvey’s lips are on fire again and a new desire thrums through his body. 

“Yeah,” Harvey moans as his fingers find their way to Mike’s entrance again. “I want you…”

“God, yes…”

It’s so easy to slide back into Mike, it’s the easiest thing Harvey has ever done. Now that he knows that he can have this, now that he has allowed himself to have this, it’s all he wants. He knows that he will sleep soundly for all the nights remaining, so what’s one more sleepless night?

In the morning, when he wakes up, Harvey can still feel where Mike kissed him, even though the kisses happened a few hours ago. He pulls a warm, sleeping Mike closer against him and smiles. Those marks will never fade.

 

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [sal-si-puedes](http://sal-si-puedes.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, come and say "Hi"!


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